When I tank FP's I basically go by the assumption that the others as well want a quick run, and by that I tend to skip as much as possible. If however they ask if we can kill additional bosses, no harm to me.

Thanks indeed .

This. For the loyal supporters of this game early access offers a great deal. The new questing zone will not be too crowded making it a great time to level up there with a primary character. Want early access yourself next time? Simple, just stick to the game and pre-order once it goes up.

It'll mean exactly what the topic already quotes: Disney finally realizes that LucasArts as a development company produces trash to put it blunt, reception is often very mediocre. Even though production costs have been high. Their days from the 90's during which they still produced good titles, are long gone by. As a licensing company, you cut on those development costs, and you simply sit back, relax and cash in on your licensing deals. For that, SWTOR falls in perfect within their portfolio for one. As long as things keep running, Disney will cash in on the licensing deal.

The issue is two-fold in terms of security. If you were wise, used a unique e-mail address for origion which you used nowhere else, keep your PC clean of keyloggers and used a unique password. Then yes, this move is a step back in terms of security as one element of the login is being handed out to the world to see. However! Most people who had this level of common sense, will probably also have an authenticator added to their account to top things off. The average Joe however, fails to care for account security. They use the same email address here, as well as on dozens of other locations. Additionally, different passwords are also unheard off. And authenticators? Well, they're just annoying! Needing to type in an extra security measure and all. Furthermore, keyloggers? Well, never happens to me and if so, who cares right? For that latter group, which is a major chunk of for who the CS will be busy resolving hacked account issues, this move IS an improvement in security. As once yet another website, game server, MMO database or whatever gets hacked and emails and passwords are lost, their accounts are less likely to be lost the next day as they may not have had the opportunity to have the same username here. And there is nothing really tying their username here, to that random email address in hacked listings.

Not sure about the US situation, but here in the Netherlands many bigger retailers have stopped supplying them or are supplying them for ridiculous prices. Why? Not enough sales being generated, so they stop buying in in bulk, and as such as they still want to make a profit if they're going to sell them it automatically becomes more expensive. Several reasons which are more likely the cause of this, of which I don't believe a production stop is any part of it. - Cheaper online webshops which including delivery still sell for a more affordable rate are frequently used by many players. - Instant delivery webshops where just the cd-key is sent by e-mail is by many considered more convenient. - A reduced number of overall subscribers which diminished the retail potency of the timecards as well. Those 3 things combined caused many retailers who bought in big bulks at launch to try and lose their supplies, and then take it out of their product line. It's nothing new really, happens all the time. If a product doesn't sell like hot buns anymore, it's often no longer worth the shelf space. As all those boxes selling once per week, could be replaced by boxes selling twice per day.

You do realize that the majority of the world drives on the right side of the road right? Even many countries which write dd-mm-yyyy. And as for miles being the right way? I personally couldn't disagree more. There's just too many values attached to it, and the only way to accurately describe the difference amongst all of them is by using a standardized method of measurement, the metric system. Just a few of the "miles" out there are the statute mile, the nautical mile, the US survey mile, the norwegian-swedish mile, the metric mile, etc.

But to be tested by who? The rep system is an endgame thing, for which there'd be very little testers on the PTS to participate in. And the Ilum event is an endgame thing with a certain PvP focus for which there'd probably be even less testers interested in. If BioWare has found that in previous tests only a handful of players met those requirements, they're better of testing internally and bypassing the PTS.

Personally, I disagree with that statement. Yes, a lot of tanks like to take lead, but ultimately imo the healer is the one who decides whether the group is ready to continue or not. Sure, a few trash mobs are no big deal. But if you run into a tad too much the group can pretty rapidly die if the healer isn't ready yet. Beyond that, dps frequently have their own set of tactics involved. And personally I can't be bothered with reading up on all the DPS' tactics. So if someone is absolutely clueless in general, and then also starts acting for what to do during a boss fight, I'll often initiate a vote-kick as I'm not there to do the explaining for him, nor do I feel like waiting for someone to learn the tactics from a youtube video whilst they could perfectly have done such in advance. The only leading which remains, is merely walking ahead, but there's little to no leadership involved in that. Any DPS in a PUG who expects me to do otherwise, can get a kick in their behinds to go do their homework .

I believe BioWare decides for a big chunk on whether to nerf or boost something based on metric data they gather by people playing the game. Something which not always falls well with players as there are many 1-trick ponies within the MMO genre who cry OP!! the moment they get outwit.

Must be the fact that I've been a dedicated tank in MMO's for pretty much most of the past 10 years, but personally I don't think there's a lot of skill required for tanking at all. There's just the sense of panic and insecurity which many people suddenly get if they're starting to tank or asked to tank. As their death could suddenly mean the end of the fight. However, none of that is even a valid concern. As the death of a DPS or healer can have the exact same effect. In particular a DPS death too many can instigate an enrage timer. Whereas the death of a single tank? Well, in such a scenario if you have another skilled tank in many cases it's far from the end of the world. And the latter imo is the only part where skill as a tank comes into play, during the period of death of another tank. For example dealing with both zorn & toth at the same time, handling firebrand & stormcaller yourself, taking on 2 bosses in Ciphas, Heirad, & Kel'sara, etc. But beyond that? It's all just part of a simple dance anybody can learn. Imo if you can learn to ride a bike, you can most certainly learn to do the basic tanking routines sufficient to pull you through HM and NiM content.

Keep in mind that the level of development which has gone into this is minimal. So it's hardly as if it cost a lot of resources which have could be spent elsewhere. What it does show however is what sort of surprising little gems can be hidden in the game, which aren't publically announced. And that is something which imo shouldn't be criticized as it happens to be for 16m content this time, but be praised. More of such "hidden content" ought to be implemented. Secret little treasures of new content pieces by doing specific things in a certain manner which would easily be overlooked, or being triggered by objects in far away outskirts on planets. Things which take several months till after a patch is even released before someone notices it and tells the rest all about it.

And exactly why would you desire to play with just people that are 18 years of older, versus the current scenario in MMO's where most are 18 years or older anyway and just a relative few are in their teens? Personally I would never pay extra to participate in such a server, as there'll be no change I can imagine happening. With perhaps as only difference the number of obnoxious kind of college students increasing proportionally as you throw out the teens and leave more room to them. And 18+ servers have been discussed in the past, overall the general consensus has always been: - It will never work and be 18+, considering as to how it's just too easy to use a parent's CC or ID for those who want to play on an 18+ server as a teen. - It's often based upon flawed reasoning on as to why there'd be a need for an 18+ server; * One which either is highly subjective such as the community would improve. Whilst a quick friday out into the city, attending the average football match between rivaling clubs, etc give you a very clear indication of just about as to how mature many so-called adults actually are. * As a place where "18+ content" would be allowed, which in general terms is regarded as erotic roleplay and such. Whilst just a very few players are actually remotely interested in something like that. * Or as a place where people would have full freedom of speech, no language filter regulations applying and such, and which also directly once more shows the level of immaturity which comes with certain groups of adult individuals. Personally I believe if anything age restricted ought to be done, it should be the other way around. Create a < 12 and 12-18 server in which children and teens are free to play. Parents being able to request a parent supervision character which cannot interact with the world around, but just with the supervised player. There's no reason to do us adults a favor by taking out the teens and younger, but for the sake of them it may be desirable to not let them be exposed to the levels of filth certain adults in this game can spew about in channels such as general chat.

As a Jugg tank I'd say let them pull. The thing is, taunt works by exponentially increasing over the current highest threat. So imagine the following situation. If the top 2 in threat look like: 1 - Tank - 10000 2 - DPS - 9500 And you taunt, gain e.g. 20 % (fictive figure) you go up to 12000 threat. However, if the TPS rate of the DPS as he started out burning is higher, he may still catch up to you during that period. If you let him out aggro you first, e.g. he hits 1000 aggro per hit, you do 800 the next hits would be: 1 - Tank - 10800 2 - DPS - 10500 1 - Tank - 11600 2 - DPS - 11500 1 - DPS - 12500 2 - Tank - 12400 Now you see the mob twitch, you instantly hit taunt and you jump from 12400 to 15000. Rather than a 2k gain you made a 2.6k gain (remember, all fictive figures). You can do this twice on firebrand and stormcaller. Just as first aggro loss use your single target taunt, then use the area taunt. Single target taunt is available again upon swap. After the swap be sure to throw in one more single target taunt once it gets off cooldown and beyond that, you don't quite have to worry about it much more. You may opt to throw in an additional single target taunt during the pillar phase, but that's all what's needed. The swapping between tanks makes the threat increase exponentially. More than what a DPS will ever be able to outhit.

Which absolute price are you referring to? Considering as to how SWTOR may be 0 Eur. Whilst for both TSW and GW2 you need to pay for a box. So in terms of absolute price, SWTOR can be the cheapest. To each of those games however, it ultimately becomes as expensive as you yourself make it. The benefits are all just a matter of preference. And beyond that, I'm not sure about TSW as I haven't actually purchased anything from the store (but the items aren't indicative for them to be account-wide?). In GW2 however I have purchased several outfits, and they're limited to a single character. Also I have purchased several inventory slot upgrades, and whereas SWTOR offers account wide unlocks for an increased price, GW2 did not offer me this option. In other words, SWTOR offers the more affordable deal for me there. Something which is all in the eye of the beholder. As personally, I think SWTOR is worth the subscription cost. Whereas I do not believe TSW is worth the subscription cost. So in case of SWTOR, anything I gain, I consider a bonus. Whilst with TSW, anything I gain, I consider having paid for. Beyond that, yes, TSW gives you 10 bucks free per month. However, TSW for a 1 month membership also costs 14.99 Eur. So in other words, I get 10 Eur, for spending 15 Eur, being 0.67 Eur for each 1 Eur I spend. My TOR Time Cards I purchase for low prices through online retailers, such as 12game.com. For which my last bunch of timecards were priced at 13.99 Eur for 60 day codes, and currently going for 17.99 Eur for 60 day codes. If they're out of stock for too long, I order from thehut.com which usually goes for around 20 Eur for 60 day codes. (Thehut.com prices tend to fluctuate as well, so also here ordering in advance and greater quantity can be beneficial). With timecards going for such low prices, and still getting 1000 cartel coins out of it which is about 8 Eur I am actually not far off from what TSW would have to offer me. Yes, I am aware that this difference does not apply in case you use credit card payments, but well yeh, not my fault if you're not a bargain hunter . Finally GW2, doesn't even offer any subscriber benefits. If you want the full GW2 experience (unlocked bank slots, inventory slots and char slots up to around 8 - 10) you're needing to cought up roughly 350 Eur. An amount which is worthy 2 years of subscription costs. I disagree. As an altoholic who loves my inventory space I am content with what SWTOR has to offer me. And I was heavily displeased with the lack of space in particular in GW2, as increasing that would require a high, possible short-term investment. Which as I practically don't play GW2 anymore, would indeed have been a short-term investment if I purchased much more there. TSW I do not consider worthy of a subscription value, so I do not subscribe. In terms of that, I also think SWTOR offers me more value for my money. It's all highly subjective, but that's the beauty of F2P games. As customer YOU get the choice to spend your money on what suits you. For some, this will be SWTOR, for others, this will be TSW or GW2, or any other game for that matter. Fact is though, there is no "best" or "worst" in any of them, there are just differences. To which everybody has their own preferences.

Keep in mind, it speaks of "extra content". So for example 500.000 pre-orders for RotHC will already make up for 5 million at least. Of course the 500k figure is fictive, but just to give an indication on how "easy" those figures may rise . And considering as to how it's now a F2P title, they may also include origin SWTOR game purchases and digital deluxe upgrade packs as "extra content".

Not necesarilly true. Yes, they may not be getting the fluff income from long-term players, as those won't stick around. However, do not forget the major number of short-term players who are only here for a few months, make some purchases and leave again. The MMO genre is seeing more and more of those players, who simply hop from one MMO to another. For those too much fluff may actually become counterproductive, as the game becomes overwhelming in the amount of content to take into regard. It's a delecate balance between providing too much, and providing too little.

It is higher than some older western F2P MMO's, however those made the switch when little market research was available. And you can't simply say during the running of the game: "wait, you know what. Those items you had for 2 bucks each? Well, they're now going through a 600% inflation rate!" Compared to newer MMO's however, they're not all too different. For example a 1440 cartel coin outfit in SWTOR costs 9.16 Eur if purchasing a 5500 cartel coin pack. A 1080 Funcom Point outfit in TSW will cost you 9.00 Eur. Sure, SWTOR is 16 cents more expensive for a single outfit, but it's only +1.7%. Not even close to +20%, and let stand to +1000%. GW2, little different. The pirate and cook outfit there for example equate to 8.75 Eur. TSW and GW2 are the type of games you ought to be comparing this market to, not some years old MMO which turned F2P half a decade ago. EA is a major publisher, which is always thinking ahead of the future. However, their views on the future will be vastly different from yours. But let's make it clear in a way for everybody to understand. EA wants to turn this: $$$$$$$ Into this: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ That additionally money may be reinvested into games, meaning more games can be produced to be sold, more profit to be made and things can keep on running. They're not seeking for creating the perfect game for a small number of people, they're seeking to make the biggest profit out of the masses.

It is not surprising at all. Many other F2P MMO's have a dominant market in the east, where people cannot afford or unwilling to spend 10 bucks on single items. But are much more willing to spend 50 cents on an item, or have early adopted to those sort of systems without good market research. In the countries of Western Europe as well as the USA however several reports have shown that there is quite a portion of players willing to pay that 10 or 20 buck per item. And the income generated by that portion of people paying that figure, outdoes the income generated by letting them pay less and opening up the items for others. Simply due to the fact that the Western RMT market is vastly different. We do not have the masses who are willing to pay. No, rather we have roughly half who is willing to pay nothing. And of the remaining 50% we simply have more than 10% of those willing to pay more than 10 times the figures others want to pay. And most of the others who are willing to pay... aren't willing to pay a whole lot, usually not much more than a buck or so. To put it simple, you have 200 players. 100 players are willing to pay. 10 players of those 100 are willing to pay 15 bucks. The other 90 are willing to pay 1 buck. Then there's two things you can do as a publisher, items for 15 bucks, or items for 1 buck. The 15$ scenario: 200 players yield 10 players purchasing, accounting for 150$ in total. The 1$ scenario: 200 players yield 100 players purchasing, accounting for 100$ in total. In the eastern segment things are more along the lines of 200 players, 150 willing to pay, 2 players willing to pay 15 bucks and 148 players willing to pay 1 buck. For them the scenarios would be as followed. The 15$ scenario: 200 players yield 2 players purchasing, accounting for 30$ in total. The 1$ scenario: 200 players yield 150 players purchasing, accounting for 150$ in total. EA is just maximizing their profit by raking in cash from those who are willing to spend out of proportionary figures on digital goods. Something which is very unlikely to change, considering as to how many people keep on throwing in the good old arguments such as: * heh, 15 bucks. That's less than what I spend during a night's out * * 10 bucks? That's the price of 2 beers! * * I couldn't care less for 20 bucks, that's what I make in half an hour! * * 12$? That's nothing, I spent more on my coffee and a sandwich today for lunch! * Living standards in western European countries and the USA are too "fairly" distributed. There is no real 1% and 99%. There's a gradient from poor to rich. And roughly 10 - 20% of the population in our countries have a surflux in money which allows them to spend it at will on even pointless "non-existing" items if we wish. Our spending culture also plays an important role in that, as seen in the many cases where financial problems do arise as for example jobs are lost and people barely have the money to go by for another month or two. Companies like EA however.... will keep on cashing in. They'll keep playing with prices to see how far they can go before that top end is starting to drop off. Playing with subtle changes such as 1200 and 1440.

I'm not really surprised, Fifa and Madden combined have well over 15 million (relatively recent) sales, making it a much bigger target audience than many western MMO's combined, let stand SWTOR alone. More people to buy your stuff quickly sums up to more revenue; it could also just be mere coincidence and alphabetical ordering or something.

I disagree, yes it may be cosmetic, but it also enhances functionality. Placing cooldown timers, buff icons and other combat related data spread out over the screen, attached on big blocks is far from functional. Yet many game developers go down that path. This leads to a scenario in which you keep swapping focus between your character's surroundings, hotbars, healthbars, buff icons, etc. Whilst in an ideal situation you want to get a direct overview of ALL of that WITHOUT needing to shift focus on your screen to various locations. A more minimalistic approach allows transfering those elements towards the center of your screen, as shown well in the first image. This enables you to get exactly that direct overview of all necesarry data without ever needing to shift focus. You can keep focus on surroundings, cooldowns, energy status, etc. If you'd want to do something similar to this in SWTOR? You can't, because multiple elements are fixed together such as buffs/health/energy status all being part of one bulky block with pointless decorations. In addition: - Seperate movable buffs. - Split buffs / debuffs as well as indicators for your (de)buffs. - Detachable healthbars, preferably altered shapes as well. - Detachable energy bars, preferably altered shapes as well. - Cooldown bar(s) with multiple format layouts. - Ability to alter positioning and text effects of incoming damage/heals and outgoing damage/heals. And well yeh, that's basically just my desires and expectencies from an MMO UI. I'm sure many people have other desires to be added to that list. Keeping addon makers in mind is only much of an effort if you let your development team work through needless loops. If your development team is able to use a solid API for their interface elements, it doesn't have to be a lot of work for allowing addon makers to do the same. And addons breaking with a patch, is never of importance to a developer. It's just of importance to the addon maker. It should never even be regarded as the other way around. No clue, never understand that sort of UI's either . But there's many UI's out there like it.

The thing is, developers will simply not be able to implement it all, or create a major level of bloat riddled with dozens of options on how to display things. As for example, this is the style of UI I'd work with in WoW: http://www.wowuigallery.com/bb-gallery/original/201_RealUI-010-combatinfo.jpg Lots of center, on screen information in a very minimalistic look. Allowing you to stay both on top of your game, as well as actually enjoy the fight graphically. Some people however, do not like the minimalistic look, some like lots of information spread out throughout their screen with every little part of the edge being put to use, such as this: http://www.wowuigallery.com/bb-gallery/original/100_fuibetaraidxt1.jpg Personally, I consider that a terrible UI, but there's many people working with UI's just like that in WoW. And there's many more UI's hanging in between, or being even different in another way. Developers will NEVER be able to match that, they will never be able to incorporate all desired styles, desired layout options and alterations, without creating an ultimate form of bloat and essentially reducing their QA departments time in patches on testing actual content to practically nothing, just to make sure that none of the UI elements were messed up during the patch.

The thing with City of Heroes was that it was NCSoft's number 10th MMO or so. NCSoft in that regards is a very, very different publisher than EA. Seeing as to how NCSoft's sole focus is MMO gaming. And with that, NCSoft at multiple occasions has stated, that they want to limit their number of actively supported titles, to only be offering the best products. So City of Heroes closing, was just a matter of time. The game was still making a little profit, but by far sufficient. And as a company, NCSoft didn't want that on their active track record anymore. They do not want to be yet another Asian publisher with 30 MMO's of which most are barely staying afloat, having mediocre player bases, etc and netting up to an overall 10% profit. As that doesn't do well with investors. Much rather they'd like to see; look, we have these 5 current MMO's up and running, of which are making a 300% profit. With our next project we're driving to continue that success. EA however is in a vastly different scenario. MMO's are just a minor part of their catalogue, and MMO's which are part of their catalogue are: - SWTOR - WAR - Dark Age of Camelot - Ultima Online Of which SWTOR is generating sufficient revenue to be of interest even mentioning in their quarterly reports. Whereas WAR, DAoC and Ultima Online? They're hardly ever spoken about anymore. If EA would decide to pull the plug on MMO's to clean up, expect Ultima Online and DAoC to go out of the door, perhaps along with WAR. But it's highly unlikely for them to back out of SWTOR. Especially seeing as to what level of an investment SWTOR has been, they essentially need to keep this thing going to show future investors as well that they do stick to the product, making it if not so much a worthy short-term investment, still a worthy long-term investment.

And this is going to be exactly the reason as to why merging the APAC servers isn't going to work out. As there will most definitely be RP'ers who do not welcome non-RP'ers as this thread once more makes abundantly clear.

Nope, do not have this issue. So I don't consider this a reason to remove them. It's close to IRL: http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/2004/12/2004_1324463559.jpg It usually takes me only a single second to turn the camera and click, it's really not that big of a deal. Especially in terms of GTN terminals, there's l ike 4 within a single pillar. Whether there's a crowd of people or a big mount standing on one, no difference. Sollution is still easy, just travel 1m further. If you consider it that bad, why not just use your ship? You can have access to all you need on it if you want.